Scepticism or conspiracy? A discourse analysis of anti-lockdown comments to online newspaper articles

ABSTRACT

This paper addresses responses to news about the imposing of a local lockdown in a UK city. The opposition to the measure shows it to be controversial as does the associated rejection of the grounds for taking action against covid more generally, which comes alongside the devaluing of expertise, resistance to public health responses, a proliferation of conspiracy theories and misinformation and the harm that can be caused by focussing on non-adherence to covid measure. The research question for this analysis is therefore: how are arguments about the local lockdown discursively formulated in online discussions? Discursive analysis of online discussions following four newspaper articles identified six arguments used that range from scepticism to conspiratorial: scepticism over (1) the prevalence and; (2) severity of covid; (3) lockdowns generally do not work and (4) the specific city lockdown will not work; (5) lockdowns are overly risk averse; and (6) there are hidden political motives for lockdowns. The discussion shows how both the ‘conspiratorial’ and non-conspiratorial arguments are potentially harmful from a public health perspective.

KEYWORDS:

• Scepticism
• conspiracy
• lockdown
• discourse analysis
• discursive psychology
• public health

Introduction

This paper addresses responses to news about the imposing of a local lockdown in the UK city of Leicester as a public health measure to reduce the spread of Covid-19. Opposition to the measure shows it to be controversial, as does the associated rejection of the grounds for containing covid. It, therefore, becomes necessary to investigate the ways in which public health measures are understood and dealt with by members of the public who are asked to change their behaviour.

Amongst measures to reduce the spread of covid-19, ‘lockdowns’ are perhaps the most impactful, as they oblige people to stay home and avoid contact with others, representing a loss of personal freedom. In the UK, a nationwide ‘lockdown’ came into effect on 26th March 2020, with non-essential work suspended and public venues, transport and non-essential shops closed. Measures were lifted on 10th May. On 4^th July Leicester, a large city in the East Midlands region, was the first place to experience a local lockdown, with similar measures within the city boundaries. This lockdown attracted widespread coverage in the national press. The system of local lockdowns, and the use of lockdown more generally were controversial public health measures.

Literature review

Addressing the role of expertise in scientific messages, Coen et al. (2021) argue that debates about what counts as expertise become possible because scientific credentials are no longer seen as straightforward markers of expertise. Focusing on climate change, they show that when the issue debated is complex and a full understanding requires expertise from across different disciplines, who can be seen as an expert (and who should be listened to) becomes difficult to ascertain. This is also the case with covid, with necessary expertise coming from medical experts such as virologists and immunologists but also behavioural experts such as social and health psychologists (Bavel et al., 2020). Coen et al. (2021) show how media practices have worked to obscure scientific consensus, further damaging the influence of experts and allowing further discussion about who is an expert and whose recommendations should be followed.

In contemporary society, power is reproduced through language and the ways that subjects of discourse are framed and positioned (KhosraviNik, 2009). This may be enacted through political discourses, which in turn may be taken up in lay discourses. KhosraviNik (2009) reports that how others are represented in newspaper reports may depend upon the proximity of the event to the general populace, how dramatic the events being reported are, and the ideological positions taken by the newspaper itself. For example, discourses may provide justifications for readers as to why in-group behaviour is acceptable and out-group behaviour unacceptable. This may involve either reproducing traditional patterns or prejudicial reporting, or generating novel ways of displaying prejudice (KhosraviNik, 2015).

Online newspapers provide a forum where these discourses may be enacted, allowing both the reproduction of political sentiments through the reportage constructed by the newspaper, and also allowing readers space to provide comments on the articles published.

This erosion of acceptance of expert advice can be seen in debates about the efficacy of vaccinations. Vayreda and Antaki (2011) studied online discussions about vaccinations for ‘swine flu’ and showed that what counted as acceptable comments were determined by the identity of discussion contributors – with those seen as having financial interests, such as the pharmaceutical industry, being rejected. This did not happen to those with ‘scientific’ interests. More recently, Toth (2020) found that scientific concerns could also be rejected in an analysis of anti-vaccination arguments in Romania. He identified four repertoires used by those opposing or rejecting vaccination: (1) distrust repertoires, (2) rejecting risks to children, (3) vaccine ineffectiveness and (4) ‘immunity is a limited resource that should not be forced’ which worked to undermine the Romanian authorities while offering moral alternatives that made the rejection of the vaccination a more acceptable option because it could be presented in a positive and supposedly healthier light than accepting them.

Reicher and Drury (2021) found general adherence to covid restrictions in the UK, such as social distancing and lockdowns, was generally very high, with over 90% adhering. This is despite many practical difficulties associated with adhering and the enduring idea of ‘pandemic fatigue’, which suggests that people are unable to engage long-term with covid restrictions. They further argue that media reporting overstates the level of non-adherence, which may encourage higher rates of non-adherence.

The covid pandemic has fed an increase in conspiracy theories and misinformation (van Mulukom et al., 2022). These have related to the origin of, and potential cure for, the virus as well as around the measures put in place to suppress its spread, ideas that can, in turn, lead to a reduction in adherence to health safeguarding measures (van Bavel et al., 2020). Recent work exploring conspiracy theories and cognition suggests potential explanatory factors relating to conspiracy theories and the Covid pandemic. A key finding is that conspiracy theories can play a role in satisfying cognitive motives that people have for building a sense of a stable, accurate and consistent understanding of the world whilst protecting core beliefs (Jost et al., 2003).

According to these cognitive theories, attraction to conspiracy theories can thus increase under conditions that generate increased uncertainty, lack clear official explanations, and threaten the legitimacy of social systems and arrangements (Douglas & Sutton, 2018) and in which people perceive a loss of control over their environment and are reminded of their own mortality (Jonas & Muhlberger, 2017). The casting of overwhelmingly disconfirmatory evidence on official and scientific findings that provoke such perceptions can be understood as a form of motivated cognition fulfilling these epistemic motives under conditions of threat and uncertainty.

Misinformation potentially carries serious risks, if people misunderstand the risk of a pandemic, then they are less likely to engage in behaviour to help control it. Greene and Murphy (2021) demonstrate how exposure to even one case of ‘fake news’ can have a small impact on behaviour. They also found that general warnings against misinformation tend to be ineffective, suporting van Bavel et al.’s claim that in an environment of misinformation ‘other approaches beyond debunking are needed’ (2020: 464).

Lee (2022) notes the lack of work considering misinformation and conspiracy around covid as discursive action. Some recent work has explored these issues from CDA (Lee, 2022) and systemic functional linguistics (Inwood & Zappavigna, 2022) approaches. This emerging work is valuable in showing how media discourse constructs objects and targets hate speech in pursuit of political goals, and how people affiliate and disaffiliate from propagation of conspiracy discourse.

However, it does not address how people themselves undertake discursive action (in terms of accusing, blaming, excusing, negating, etc) and rhetorically construct arguments in their own communication. Rather than examining arguments around covid and misinformation in terms of their relation to assumed internal beliefs or motivated cognitions, or in terms of the political goals of media discourse, we propose an approach that sees them as discursive activity produced and rhetorically defended in specific social contexts.

This study therefore draws on the discursive approach (Edwards & Potter, 1992) because it is well placed to investigate the ways that arguments around these issues are made and received. The research question for this analysis is, how are arguments against the local lockdown in Leicester discursively formulated in online discussions?

Method

Data sources

Data were drawn from online discussions surrounding Leicester’s local lockdown, first announced on 30 June 2020. At this time, the impacts of long covid were not well-known and no vaccines were available.

The lockdown was widely reported in national and local newspapers. We drew data from a selection of UK newspapers that published online articles relating to the Leicester lockdown and had open comments sections for the public to post responses. We aimed for a sample illustrative of the breadth of the UK press, drawing data from the comments sections of four newspapers: The Daily Mail¹ (5717 comments), The Daily Mirror² (107 comments), The Financial Times³ (147 comments) and The Leicester Mercury (53 comments).⁴ This provided data from ideologically right (Mail) and left (Mirror) national tabloids, a traditional national broadsheet (FT) and the most-read local newspaper (Mercury). Although the Leicester lockdown was local, being the first local lockdown implemented in the UK, it made the national news, with people all over the country able to comment and respond. As such, despite its local nature, it may be considered an issue of national significance / importance.

Due to the number of comments in the Daily Mail discussion, some filtering was required to render the amount of data manageable. Comments for this source were sorted in order of positive or negative voting by readers and filtered according to the best and worst received comments. These ratings are created by discussion contributors themselves, through ‘upvoting’ and ‘downvoting’ comments, to make them more or less visible. As such, these comments were taken to represent the most engaged with for this sources reportage. This resulted in 419 comments ranked ‘best’ and 459 comments ranked ‘worst, giving 878 comments in total from this source. As the other sources did not have this volume of comments, no selection or filtering was applied to their comments.

Data was collected on 15 July 2020, and other than filtering the comments as described, no action was taken to adjust the data. All comments made from date of publication were included as they appeared in their originally published (online) form. Where comments had been moderated, removed or edited by users or the newspaper site itself, this information and formatting were retained, including any spelling, typographical, grammatical, or syntactical errors.

Ethics

Ethical approval was granted by the university ethics board. Approval was subject to ensuring that all contributors to the discussions are presented anonymously; therefore, all usernames and any identifying information have been removed.

Analytic framework

Data was analysed following a discursive psychological framework, following the guidance from Goodman (2017). Discursive psychology treats discourse as situated, occasioned action rather than attempting to identify internal cognitive states and processes, such as those theories presented above that view the use of misinformation as a cognitive strategy. Discursive psychology has previously been successfully utilised in the analysis of online discourse (Coles, 2018; Coles & West, 2016), showing how speakers engage with published material online, creating bespoke arguments aimed at rationalising and justifying positions taken relative to the initially published argument. These positions are not understood to reflect speakers own internal cognitive states and processes but rather to represent available stances that serve to justify a particular argumentative aim of the speaker. Discursive psychology differs from CDA in that it does not explicitly focus on the relations between language, power and ideology or overt politics (although not necessarily avoiding these either) but does reject making inferences about speakers’/writers’ emotions, instead taking a more detailed focus on what actions are performed in the data (such as justifying positions, constructing identities and making accusations).

Each member of the team took one comment thread and read through it to identify repertoires present. Interpretative repertoires are defined as ‘a recognizable routine of arguments, descriptions and evaluations found in people’s talk often distinguished by familiar clichés, anecdotes and tropes … “what everyone knows”’ (Seymour-Smith et al., 2002, p. 255). After this initial pass, team members met to co-ordinate initial observations. Repertoires were examined together, and those agreed by the research team to be common across sources were selected for inclusion and retained for further analysis. Repertoires which appeared in only one source, which were not verified by co-researchers, or which garnered too few extracts were removed.

Findings

The analysis identified six repertoires that challenged information about covid and measures to address it. These range from scepticism over the severity of covid, which included scepticism over (1) the prevalence and (2) severity of covid, scepticism over the effectiveness of lockdowns, which includes the arguments that (3) lockdowns generally do not work and that (4) the lockdown specifically in Leicester will not work, and scepticism over the motives for imposing lockdowns including arguments that (5) lockdowns are overly risk-averse, that (6) there are hidden political motives for lockdown.

• (1) Scepticism over the severity of covid

Respondents mobilised a range of rhetorical tools to minimise, challenge, or dismiss the prevalence and severity of the covid pandemic. Posters’ objections centre around the claim that the coronavirus is not as deadly as has been claimed. As such, measures taken to limit its impact are unnecessarily burdensome. Extract 01 demonstrates this claim made through appeals to numeracy, centred on the claim that the UK Government is providing misleading information.

Scepticism over the prevalence of covid

P1 ‘Some 866 people tested positive in the two weeks to June 23’. What we also need to know is how many tests have been conducted? Without knowing the number of tests conducted the number of 866 is useless. By average, 1/100 tests returns a false positive, if they have tested 10,000 people in Leicester since June 23 then about 1,000 tests will return a false positive. And, have they all tested positive for covid-19 or another variant of the Corona-virus? How many have developed any symptoms? If the authorities refuse to tell us the number of tests conducted then I am tempted to believe they are trying to inflate the numbers artificially in order to keep up the fear and justify the continued lockdown measures. It has nothing to do with a real danger.

Extract 1 begins with reported speech (Leudar & Antaki, 1996) citing figures relating to the pandemic (line 1), which provide the ‘rhetorical other’ against whom P1 argues. S/he presents a factual claim presumably intended to indicate the severity and seriousness of the pandemic through a mixture of specific numbers – ‘866’ – appended to a vagueness modifier – ‘some’ (Billig, 2021). P1 challenges not these specific numbers per se, but rather the amount of additional information needed, but not provided, to understand them.

P1 asserts the need to know the proportion of tests, rather than raw numbers to take anything meaningful from them, and appeals to consensus (Potter & Edwards, 1990) using the inclusive ‘we’ (line 01) when arguing the need for additional information. P1 thus positions whoever reads their comment as agreeing with them, and de-facto disagreeing with the pandemic response. ‘We’ are invited from the outset to share P1’s scepticism.

The argument is constructed with a display of numeracy (although the numerical calculation in lines 3 and 4 is, in fact, erroneous), to lend credibility to P1’s challenge to the efficacy of the tests. This is presented as a rational argument for why these figures should be dismissed –there is insufficient context about the numbers of tests conducted. The intended interpretation is provided for the reader – the figures are negatively evaluated as ‘useless’ (line 3). This evaluation is sandwiched between assertions of problematic information and two accounts of distrust. The first of these again is based upon presented figures (‘false-positive’ rates, implying a factual understanding). The second is based upon speculation concerning information about covid which is omitted concerning, framing a claim that the authorities are deliberately withholding information from the public (‘the authorities refuse’).

This is followed by a footing shift (Goffman, 1981). P1 no longer uses the inclusive ‘we’ but rather presents their own conclusions (‘I am tempted’). This cautious hedge, rather than assertion, about the government’s motivations allows the assertion to be challenged without undermining P1’s overall argument. P1 continues to hedge their closing assertions with a redundant stressor – ‘to inflate artificially’ (Bazzanella, 2011). This hedging is necessary, as P1 moves towards the coda of their extract. The Government wishes to maintain fear to control the population – not to protect them from danger (lines 7–8).

It is notable that the lack of danger is simply asserted. No supporting evidence is mobilised – that work is achieved through the numeracy discourse between lines 1–4, questioning the strain of coronavirus people are exposed to (lines 4–6), and challenging the motives of the Government (line 7). If the virus is not as deadly as we are led to believe, then the measures taken to prevent the spread of the virus may be understood as excessive and unnecessary.

Scepticism over the mortality/morbidity of covid

Whilst the above comment casts doubt on the prevalence of covid by attempting to delegitimise official case estimates, commentators also voiced scepticism as to the mortality and morbidity of covid. Several comments argued that covid should be seen not as generally deadly but rather as ‘a virus which exclusively kills people who are ill’ (P2). An extended example appears in the following extract:

P3: This paper has published a list so when reading it I checked my city details and found this

There have been no new coronavirus-related deaths recorded in the city main NHS hospital trust for over a week, as the number of cases in the city remains the same for another day.

Yet you say it's on the rise.

P4: It’s all lies. Government admitted putting covid on death certificates without ever having tested for it. On live television. No one said a word!

P5: [P4] the government has nothing to do with what goes on a death certificate the only person who has any input is the doctor who pronounced the death. But a death certificate will include primary, secondary and contributory factors for someones death.

The mistake the government have made is they included in their statistics deaths whenever covid was mentioned even if it was a contributory factor and the person would have died anyway due to the primary cause of death if they didn't have the virus.

This exchange begins with P3 citing ‘details’ they have ‘checked’ which show that there have been no new deaths in Leicester’s hospitals despite the case for lockdown being predicated on covid’s mortality rate. In the follow-up discussion to this post, P4 inserts a dismissal of covid’s reported mortality by framing the case for it as based on government ‘lies’ and the recording of covid as cause of death even in the absence of testing to establish this. This argument is supported with a vague reference to a discussion ‘on live television’. P5’s contribution moderates the rather extreme account in P4’s post whilst maintaining the position that official reports of covid’s mortality are inaccurate. This poster challenges the position that the government can control what is entered onto a death certificate and produces a sense of legitimacy for his/her argument through the display a detailed account of practice in this area, then providing an alternative formulation of a justified scepticism towards the official figures through an apparently more moderate assessment of ‘the mistake’ the government has made in collating their statistics from death certificate data.

P6

The only crazy thing was crashing the world economy for an illness that is not a threat to most people

In this post, there is a more straightforward and simply-stated rejection of the government strategy rooted in the position that several other posters elaborated above – that covid is not a risk to those not already clinically vulnerable. The lockdown is thus positioned as a ‘crazy thing’ that Governments have mistakenly and unnecessarily enforced even though the coronavirus ‘is not a threat to most people’. By inference these decisions are not based on sound scientific advice and have needlessly impacted the ‘world economy’ and trade. This asserts that the wrong type of ‘risk’ (public health) is being prioritised over more certain economic damage. This framing also implies the separation of the population into two distinct categories: ‘most people’, classified as healthy and not at risk, and the (unspecified) vulnerable people who are prioritised unfairly (see Drew, 2003; Sacks, 1975).

• (2) Scepticism over the effectiveness of lockdowns

Lockdowns (in general) do not work (also the virus will just subside on its own anyway)

Whilst there is an implicit opposition to lockdown in arguments that challenge the prevalence, mortality and/or morbidity of covid, a number of posters focus their arguments specifically on scepticism about the effectiveness or desirability of imposing lockdowns to tackle the pandemic. One feature in these posts is recourse to evidence, with the implication that the public needs to be better informed and that data needs to be more closely scrutinised by exploring ‘unproven’ peaks and waves of infection. Posters often structure their arguments around international comparisons, with Government inaction and lockdown delays highlighted as failures causing ineffective outcomes. Others focused on negative evaluations of local lockdowns such as the one on in Leicester, which were depicted as illogical and unfair to cities targeted.

P14

That's why Belgium, the UK, Spain and Italy all lead Sweden in Covid-19 deaths per capita, and are the worst in the world. same as blue states vs red in the US lol.

Ireland has had one of the most draconian lock-downs (even by UK standards) and is not all that far behind. and it's far more isolated.

Japan has had one of the looser lock-downs and has probably performed better than any other nation globally, suggesting there are many other variables at play (mask wearing when sick, healthy population, voluntary social distancing, good healthcare, protection of nursing homes - crucial)

lock-downs vs isolating the at-risk make very little sense (especially when implemented 3 months late). the evidence is far from overwhelming. in fact the evidence probably suggests the opposite - that lock-downs do more harm than good when enacted after the horse has well and truly bolted.

but don't let that get in the way of you from cheering for the loss of your personal freedoms;)

The argument against the use of local lockdowns is structured as a comparison of countries the poster deems to be doing well (Sweden, Japan) and those not doing well in containing the pandemic (Belgium, UK, Spain, Italy, Ireland). This binary categorisation is presented as clear-cut and obvious, rather than emphasising any ambiguity or equivocality in data that might support it (see Sharrock & Turner, 1978). ‘Success’ is directly linked to societies adopting ‘looser’ lockdown measures and, without providing any specific statistics, the poster claims that the correct means of exhibiting this pattern is using is ‘Covid-19 deaths per capita’ (see Sacks, 1988/9).

The poster then focuses on the UK Government’s decision-making by introducing further binary possibilities of a full lockdown for all citizens versus mandating isolation of the ‘at-risk’. The former is dismissed as making little sense and ‘doing more harm than good’, exacerbated in negative impacts through a purported late implementation ‘after the horse has bolted’. The sub-text here is one of Government inaction and faulty decision-making. Further this judgement suggests that even if a Government decides to adopt a lockdown-type approach to the pandemic, the policy can only be effective if enacted swiftly before cases rise. Instead, the poster argues that the purpose of the lockdown is not about saving lives, but a back-door way of eroding ‘personal freedoms’ with citizens giving up their rights without questioning the regulations and those who mandate them.

P15

Germany will, inevitably, experience outbreak after outbreak, potentially for years. This is because, if the statistics are to be taken at face value, only a very small % of the German population have been exposed to the virus.

By contrast, such a high proportion of the U.K. population has either been exposed (& survived or died) or is otherwise not susceptible that herd immunity is near at hand. This is a logical destination which will be reached imminently.

This post also sets up a comparison between the situation of the UK and a comparator country (Germany) that implemented a more stringent system of lockdowns. At the time of this post, it was well-known that Germany had experienced markedly lower rates of infection, hospitalisation and death than the UK. It is this evidence that this post implicitly disconfirms the significance of. Germany’s lower rates of infection in this account mask a problem that is building up for the country – a low rate of exposure equating to a low rate of immunity and a lowered resistance to viral waves to come. The UK’s higher rates of infection, by contrast, are diminished in significance because they imply an approach to ‘herd immunity’. This evidence is predictive and suppositional, but presented as trumping and disconfirming existing epidemiological data by plotting an inevitable trajectory that the poster presents as an obvious, inevitable and logical outcome (on this, see Sacks, 1975).

The Leicester lockdown is not impacting rates of transmission/fatalities

A sub-set of posts focused on data-driven debates around the effectiveness of the lockdown that was implemented in Leicester. A central focus of these posts is distrust of both media and government sources and their scientific advisors, who, it is contested, selectively present incomplete or misleading data. Scepticism about the link between lockdown and the weakening of virus transmission rates leads to debates around potential sources of reliable and trustworthy information.

P16

Deaths are 3-4 weeks behind infections. The people that underestimate the risk and think they know better than the scientists are the problem.

P14

they are generally 2 weeks, not 3-4. lock-downs are not scientifically justified unless you believe that: a) hospitals will be overwhelmed (they wont be in Leicester); b) you can lock-down forever (you can't) or c) there will be an imminent cure (there won't be).

your plan is basically to have intermittent lockdowns forever for a virus that kills <0.3%. nice one!

like most of the US states being hit now, there will be an uptick in deaths for a while before the virus subsides, but it seems to be getting less fatal as the virus wears on (this tends to happen).

suggest you get your head out of your backside and start reading more widely than the BBC and FT. you might learn a thing or two.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yn5BGHuK1zo

The first poster raises concerns over people not taking covid-19 seriously enough. They criticise people who undermine the risk of covid-19 – possibly because the deaths are ‘3-4 weeks behind infections’ – and describe them as a problem who ‘think they know better than the scientists’.

Another poster (P14) presents a counterargument and offers alternative figures to support their suggestion that covid-related deaths occur sooner than suggested. This poster, who offers reasons as to why lockdown is not scientifically justified, describes pro-lockdown views as based in ‘belief’ rather than fact. A hypothesis is proposed (and then refuted) that lockdowns can only be deemed ‘scientifically justified’ if hospitals are ‘overwhelmed’ by covid admissions – something presented as not the case in Leicester (although without supporting evidence). Ancillary conditions for potential effective lockdowns are similarly simultaneously presented and dismissed: governments would need to, but cannot, impose lockdown forever, and lockdowns could only end with development of a cure (which will not be forthcoming). In light of the rejection of the possibility of effective lockdowns, the implication is that the only alternative is an ineffective repeated strategy of local lockdowns, and the need for such measures is further undermined by the diminution of the lethality of the disease (‘a virus that kills <0.3%’).

Reported rates of covid cases in America are also used to suggest that covid weakens naturally over time as more people are infected. The poster ends with a dismissive retort to those who they presume consume information from limited sources (the BBC and FT), with the implication that (more accurate) information supporting their viewpoint is available to those who seek it.

P17

It is going away. It will gradually fade away if we simply resume normal life.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/uk/

Please examine the daily deaths plot. The 3-day moving average shows peak daily deaths April 10th. Note that death reporting is always somewhat delayed, so the peak deaths was probably a few days earlier still. https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/declining-death-rate-from-covid-19-in-hospitals-in-england/ Henegan et al argue the peak daily deaths was Apr 8.

We locked down on Mar 23. That’s just 2weeks 2days prior to peak deaths, The interval between infection & death is in excess of 3 weeks. Lockdown is the wrong side of the turning point. Therefore, it did not cause the turning point.

Once your mind accepts that, many things become clear, including causes of the turning point & future profile of the pandemic.

This poster argues that covid is ‘going away’ and suggests resuming ‘normal life’ – implying no more lockdowns – as a way of mitigating covid. P17 leaves a link to the Worldometer’s tracker of covid-19 and suggests that the UK has passed their covid peak, rendering lockdown unnecessary.

They also reference an academic report that suggests a decline in covid-related deaths in England. This is followed by a calculation based on assumed infection lead-in times to support the notion that covid-19 has peaked. It is suggested that lockdown has come too late – ‘the wrong side of the turning point’ – and will not be effective. The post also hints at some conspiracy, with the poster suggesting that once you accept lockdown has come too late, then ‘many things become clear’.

Although posters displayed different perspectives and views about the public health approach to the pandemic in the UK (and/or Leicester), a common under-current is the ulterior motives behind the decisions. As such the public are framed as ceding their ‘personal freedoms’ without proper scrutiny (P14), variable rules are argued to be unfair (P15), and the Government and media are characterised by ineffective action and misuse of data.

• (3) Scepticism over motives for imposing lockdowns

In this section, the government’s imposition of lockdown – driven by advice from scientists – is critiqued. Lockdown is portrayed as a misguided, overcautious and extreme measure to tackle covid-19. The data used by the government to justify lockdown are questioned and alternative figures offered to reframe it as doing more harm in relation to other public health issues. Some conspiratorial ideas begin to appear in some of the critiques. In such instances, the general public are described as passive while government policies have negative impact on other social/public policies.

Lockdown driven by inappropriate risk aversion

P6

The same scientists that are suggesting you wash your fiance's hand before you put the ring on at your wedding day. The same scientists that say you can't let guests sing on your wedding day?

There is a difference between risk aversion and risk management but not for the govt who are hoping to pass a hindsight test with the British media.

Think for yourself. 'The science' involves more guesswork than you are comfortable admitting.

This poster uses comical examples to ridicule scientists’ covid advice. The crux of the argument is that the British government are being risk-averse so they can be judged more favourably in the future. It is then suggested that the general public are not exercising independent critical thinking about this. The use of scare quotes when referring to ‘the science’ reinforces the notion of official advice as a problematic construction lacking adequate basis in evidence.

P7

As others have said elsewhere if the Govt's stats are right then Leicester is experiencing 35 new cases per 100k population, that's 450 cases based on city size.

The death rate is now 0.25-0.5% thats 1-2 deaths. Presumably like everywhere else they'll probably already sick with a serious condition; so why destroy more livelihoods, further ruin kid's education, delay cancer treatment etc., and cause more suicides?

Oh before I get the usual 'but any death must be avoided' nonsense: we live with flu and all the other risks every day this is no different. There's a balance in everything.

As Professor David Miles of Imperial has found in his recent paper ‘Living with COVID 19’ even if the death rate in this country increased by a multiple of the current level it would still not justify the damage done by Lockdown using NICE's own figures.

P7 constructs an argument against lockdown by presenting figures that minimise the harm caused by covid in juxtaposition with more serious harms caused by lockdown. The argument is introduced and supported by the presentation of, and extrapolation from, ‘government stats’. Although abstracted from any associated data that might show trends, transmission and future projections, the precise nature of the figure and their associated calculations produces a minimised negative outcome ‘1-2 deaths’ which is further linked to the presumption that these would be people ‘already sick’. There is an implicit othering and devaluation of this group to achieve a minimised presentation of the potential benefits of lockdown.

The argument’s legitimacy is defended through the extreme case formulation in line six – ‘before I get the usual “but any death must be avoided” nonsense’. This positions alternative proposals – those trying to control the virus through lockdowns – as unrealistic. It juxtaposes two alternatives – accepting ‘risk’ in relation to covid as is done with other risks to public health and thus pursuing ‘balance’ (which equates to not locking down), or pursuing of a set of unrealistic and unachievable aims to nullify all risk.

The ‘balance’ to be struck against the minimised risk of covid is presented against more significant risks of lockdown to the economy, healthcare and wellbeing. There is a contrast between the precise figures presented in the first part of the post in relation to viral spread and fatalities, and the qualitative risks of lockdown – whose legitimacy is derived from the authoritative positions of the source from an esteemed institution (‘Professor David Miles of Imperial’).

Both extracts employ discursive strategies to cast doubt on official scientific advice by undermining the certainty of the scientific enterprise and the credibility of SAGE scientists or by the marshalling and presentation of alternative data to present a more viable alternative.

Hidden motives for lockdown

Whilst the propagation of such arguments might be problematic from a public health perspective, they are framed as contrary positions to lockdown, which is presented as misguided and balanced out with counterarguments. However, there are also more conspiratorial aspects to these arguments, particularly in repeated suggestions that the government and media are hiding the ‘truth’ and hints at authoritarianism and ‘being played’. Other comments go further, framing opposition to lockdown in a qualitatively different way, rooted in deliberate misrepresentation and manipulation of facts by nefarious government and media actors for hidden motives.

P8

Locking down Leicester is just another dead cat to distract from the government failing to extend the Brexit deadline. It also allows them to claim that they are serious about dealing with the virus, when without publishing their full testing statistics (how many actual people are tested with results received!), and actually quarantining the city, it is meaningless distraction.

When it was first mooted that there may be local lockdowns, I already had Leicester at the top of my list without knowing anything about it’s virus history: it is an ideal test case - large, but not too large, easy to isolate as not spread out, near enough to monitor without being too close …… Just what you need for an experiment on lockdown.

Here, lockdown is not enforced through a misguided pursuit of an unrealistic outcome as in earlier extracts, but as knowingly based on fictitious claims for political motives – distracting the public from political failures elsewhere and attaining a veneer of political credibility for responding to the virus. Initial allusions to covered-up government testing data segue into a strategy to manage the facticity of the account through the contention that the strategy was clear to the poster before the fact. This strategy manages the subjectivity of the argument by presenting it not merely as a position arrived at from the poster’s subjective assessment, but as one that, given appropriate evaluation of the facts, was predictable in advance – predictable even ‘without knowing anything about [Leicester’s] virus history’.

The facts underpinning this predictability are presented as supporting Leicester’s selection as an ‘experiment on lockdown’. Whilst this differs somewhat from the initially presented motive of political distraction, both share a common framing of lockdown not as mistaken policy to be argued against, but the result of deliberate deception in pursuit of goals divergent from those presented to justify it.

P9

Sir Peter is right about the Government in London. Leicester is the perfect place to trial an extra lockdown because of two things: It is the least visited City in the UK in terms of tourists. And Leicestershire is owned by only a few families (in trust) making it very unlikely people from outside the city (walls) will complain.

 P10

 Agreed, someone in the Government picked Leicester as a test.

Note the ‘recommend’ language and ‘stay at home as much as possible’ so Cummings can go there for a ice cream and a walk in the woods.

The children are particular affected so the schools will close on Thursday, Thursday? today is Monday.

Hancock refered to the rules - like the 2 m rule - like slapping a colleague on the back?

What a joke Government!

  P11

  So no local outbreak? Invented by the government or engineered? Please state which (with evidence).

    P10

    Do your own research and look into the Government moving Covid cases into Glenfield Hospital near Leicester and then counting the cases. I think that counts as 'engineered'.

This extract begins with a justification for why Leicester is being used as a ‘trial’ for local lockdowns, implying the intention of then introducing a wider-scale lockdown. The idea that Leicester is ‘owned by only a few families’ is presented as an explanation for it being the ‘test’ site. It is not made clear why this is being done, but the government is deemed responsible. The post further criticises the government for leaving loopholes for those in power to act outside of its own rules (through the reference to Cummings).

P11 responds critically, implying that their criticisms are baseless and potentially conspiratorial. This is done using two questions. The first implies that there is a local outbreak. The second further challenges the conspiratorial arguments of the previous posts by asking which conspiratorial feature (invented or engineered) is occurring, positioning both as far-fetched.

P10 responds not with direct evidence, but with the suggestion that P11 seek out evidence, followed by a brief, unspecific example of what is supposedly happening. The reply ends with an answer to P11’s question. Placing the answer in quotation marks, functions to resist the implication that the earlier posts are conspiratorial. Together, this interaction shows that potentially conspiratorial arguments are made, supported, challenged and backed up with examples.

P12

But don’t forget you’ll be fined for not sending the kids to school. Won’t be long before we get to the ultimate government wet dream - you’re criminalised for not staying at home with your kids or you’re criminalised because you are staying at home with them.

This post presents the lockdown as designed to enable government control over the population (their ‘ultimate’ ‘wet dream’), through criminalisation of all options available to parents (sending children to school, staying or not staying at home with them). The lockdown is, therefore, not about protecting people, but a means for government to pursue authoritarian goals. In the following extracts, similar sentiments about the use of lockdowns to introduce gradual extension of government control:

P13

Glad I don't live in Leicester. If my state of internment without crime or trial, or being in any danger from this virus, was continued I would be seriously angry. I'm yet to hear why the just vulnerable could not be asked to isolate. When the dust settles on this many governments need to be held to account for what they did to their own people, without such measures being absolutely necessary.

 P14

 and there was / is still a clearly defined at-risk population we can protect (start with nursing homes)

sadly, govts are relishing the new authoritarian powers, and elites want a global reset

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jun/03/pandemic-is-chance-to-reset-global-economy-says-prince-charles

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/06/now-is-the-time-for-a-great-reset/

The first post repeats ‘lockdowns are ineffective’ and ‘only the vulnerable are at risk’ arguments identified previously. The overuse of the ineffective lockdown is presented as grounds for anger, meriting an investigation into the government’s actions. There is some hedging, with lockdown being presented as not ‘absolutely’ necessary. P14 replies by supporting and building on this comment. The first sentence picks up the ‘vulnerable at risk’ repertoire and suggests a course of action (helping those in nursing homes) to deal with this. The second goes further, arguing that governments (not just the UK’s) and unspecified ‘elites’ are taking advantage of newfound abilities to control populations, including implementing a ‘global reset’. The lockdown is therefore presented as a way to bring about social change and authoritarianism rather than about preventing the spread of covid.

Discussion

Our analysis identifies six repertoires in online discussions of the imposition of lockdown in Leicester that work to undermine the case for lockdown by taking sceptical positions to reasons given for its implementation. These are classified under categories of covid scepticism, lockdown scepticism and scepticism over motives for the government response to covid.

In relation to covid scepticism, we identified repertoires (i) covid is not as prevalent as official statistics present, and (ii) covid is not sufficiently dangerous to merit implementing lockdown. In both repertoires, discussants leverage ambiguities or lacunae in official statistics or accounts (such as breakdowns of testing rates, local-level data for hospitalisations or the process of ascertaining official cause of death) to cast doubt on official accounts of the prevalence or dangerousness of covid. These moves are strengthened by short-form presentation of the official figures for argumentative purposes, often without context in original sourcing. This doubt opens up discursive space for strategies similar to Sacks (1988) ‘members’ measurement systems’ and Lave’s (1988) ‘everyday mathematics’, in which discussants introduce alternative figures and present their own calculations that then are presented as resolving the putative doubts in favour of a position minimising the prevalence and harm of covid – reported numbers of positive tests become less significant, and risks of death from covid are reduced.

The lockdown scepticism categorisation comprised repertoires (i) lockdowns are ineffective disease control measures and/or impossible to implement in a way that would have any impact, and (ii) the imposed lockdown is not actually affecting rates of transmission or fatalities. Here, posters use selective comparisons with other countries, based on a snapshot idealisation of them as ‘doing well’ or ‘doing badly’ in terms of infection rates, and extrapolate from their covid response measures to argue that the decision to lock down or not to has little impact on disease transmission. A parallel argument rests on the construction of chains of events based on behaviours of the public. That is, if lockdown is implemented people will behave in ways that undermine its effectiveness, with the only possible outcomes being a lockdown backed by an unduly heavy police control or one that is ineffective in preventing transmission. We see here similar strategies to those in covid scepticism repertoires of delegitimising the case for lockdown through selective application of everyday mathematics – in these cases, (re)calculations based on posters’ own derivations of the (lack of) impact of the lockdown on covid fatalities through estimations of the ways in which death rates will or will not reflect a lead-in time for incubation of the disease. This suggests an interesting parallel with the phenomenon of ‘motivated numeracy’ (Nurse & Grant, 2020). This predicts that people’s numerical interpretations of risk are influenced by prior beliefs such that accurate numerical inferences are more likely to be made when they align with or are unrelated to strongly held beliefs, and vice versa. Here we see similar occurrences with communication rather than interpretation of numerical information, as discussants dismiss official figures that challenge their sceptical position and promote a more numerate analysis of alternative figures to support it. These arguments also intersect with a (re)mobilisation of a generalised scepticism over the mortality of covid to further undermine the case for lockdown.

Presentation of scepticism over the motives for imposing lockdown comprised repertoires (i) government and scientists are overly risk-averse, and (ii) there are hidden socio-political motives behind the implementation of the Leicester lockdown. The discourse of risk aversion by government and scientists was often managed through ridiculing a caricatured position of excessive risk aversion that was imputed to those proposing lockdown (‘the same scientists that say you can’t let guests sing on your wedding day?’) and, similar to repertoires discussed above, through leveraging the increased risk of hospitalisations and death for people with pre-existing health conditions to downplay and ridicule the necessity of instituting lockdown as a general protection measure. Whilst this first repertoire presents disagreement with the assessment of risk behind government decisions, the second is more pointed and accusatory.

Implications for literature

Here, the implication is that the government are motivated in their imposition of lockdown by hidden and nefarious political motives – to distract from unwanted political attention elsewhere or to extend and entrench their ability to monitor and control the population. This marks an interesting point at which sceptical discourses cross over into something more akin to conspiracy theories. As Billig (1991) notes, a key feature of these discourses is their rhetorical target can be seen to be more ‘ordinary, non-conspiratorial interpretations of the world’ that are countered by the discussant being able to discover ‘the hidden truth’.

We see similar and overlapping discursive strategies underpinning these claims (marshalling uncertainty around official figures for hospitalisations to undermine official accounts; the conceptual separation of the healthy ‘most people’ from those ‘at risk’ to undermine a universalist response). The key difference, as Billig notes, is the target of these accounts being a more ordinary interpretation of the reasons for lockdown – so, the outcome should have been predictable to those who were able to evaluate the requisite knowledge appropriately and those who do not see through the hidden motives are enjoined to ‘do your own research’. It is proposed that a vaguely-referenced government or set of elites (referenced as ‘they’ or through metonymy ‘(unelected psychopath) Cummins’) deliberately distorting and controlling information to pursue what are taken to be common-sense goals of government control (a government’s ‘wet dream’) or globalist conspiratorial goals (a global cabal pursuing the ‘great reset’), similar to the far-right discourse of ‘elites’ working against the national interest (Johnson & Goodman, 2013).

Individualistic approaches to dealing with (mis)information, such as motivated cognition, fail to address the nature of talk about controversial topics as situated and occasioned action (Edwards & Potter, 1992) constructing and rhetorically managing accounts to carry off interpersonal goals, which is why a discursive approach is beneficial. This also highlights the need for more research on how misinformation is understood and negotiated. Hadlington et al. (2022) begin to do this with their social constructionist analysis of how social media users understand and interact with information regarding covid, in which they found a difficult situation where people draw on social media for fact-checking despite displaying awareness of the existence of misinformation. Further discursive analysis of how people produce and respond to misinformation is therefore needed.

Whilst van Mulukom et al. (2022), in their meta-analysis of belief in covid conspiracy theories, note associations between specific personality traits and prior beliefs and belief in covid conspiracies, the focus in this paper on the discursive content of responses to health safeguarding measures notes considerable overlap and interdependence between these identified discourses. In practice, they can co-exist in the same series of accounts and support one another in undermining the case for lockdown. Whilst the more conspiratorial style of account is on the surface more alarming (especially in light of some of the high profile violent or destructive actions by people protesting covid public health measures in these terms – e.g. BBC News, 2021), both these and the non-conspiratorial accounts are potentially harmful from a public health perspective. As Toth (2020) points out in respect of discourses of vaccine resistance, these repertoires have in common the delegitimising of ‘a series of dominant discourses (of the main actors in the health systems)’ and the offering of ‘moral and epistemic alternatives’. Whilst different to discourses identified in Toth’s study, those examined here share the characteristic of seeming to be ‘easily accessible discursive resources’, and ‘ready-made answers’ to challenge public health benefits of lockdowns to contain the spread of a dangerous pathogen. There are challenges for public health messaging to counter the degree to which official accounts and statistics can be so widely undermined by alternative ones, and for the degree to which these same alternative accounts can cross a rather blurry demarcation line and become more actively conspiratorial and accusatory and so potentially more dangerous.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Vanessa Tafi

Vanessa Tafi is a Research & Insight Analyst. Her research focusses on political behaviour, including voting and beliefs as well as online discussions about Black Lives Matter. Her other research interests include the role of social media influencing political and marketing ideas and decisions.

Bryn Alexander Coles

Dr Alexander Coles is a lecturer in psychology at De Montfort university. He has previously worked as a lecturer in psychology at Newman University. His research interests centre around the construction of meaning in online spaces.

Simon Goodman

Simon Goodman is a Senior Lecturer at De Montfort University. He uses discursive psychology to address a number of issues, including the discursive construction of refugees, what is and what is not considered to be offensive in online settings, the British public’s understanding of income inequality and the ways in which the far-right attempt to present their policies as acceptable and non-racist.

Scott Yates

Scott Yates is an Associate Professor in the School of Applied Social Sciences at De Montfort University. He has researched and written widely on health and illness, disability, and education and employment, especially as they affect young people and their families. His most recent research focus is on mental health and mental illness in families.

Christopher Elsey

Christopher Elsey is a Senior Lecturer in Health and Well Being in Society at De Montfort University. Methodologically his research primarily utilises video recordings to investigate work-place practices, activities, and sites of learning, informed by the sociological research traditions of ethnomethodology, conversation analysis and symbolic interactionism. The worksite settings he has researched to date include: mental health, sport and the media; medical consultations (e.g. General Practice, Memory Clinics, Medical Education); air force communication and military inquiries; NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration); and an further education college setting for adults with learning difficulties.

Notes

1 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8469725/Leicester-faces-extra-two-week-lockdown-pubs-hairdressers-staying-SHUT.html#comments.

2 https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/leicester-braces-local-lockdown-36-22272894#comments-wrapper.

3 https://www.ft.com/content/5b9ce1f9-35f2-4640-914e-12b8f757b103#comments-anchor (comments no longer available).

4 https://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/news/leicester-news/governments-leicester-lockdown-include-restrictions-4275440#comments-wrapper (comments no longer available).